Dec. 12, 2007

In an effort to highlight the leadership and good works of the student-athletes in the conference, the ACC SAAC began the SAAC in ACCtion initiative to provide on-line articles about the SAAC programs at the league's 12 member institutions. The goal of this initiative is to shed light on the great things our student-athletes are doing to affect significant positive change on campus and in our communities. Every two weeks, the SAAC leaders from a different school will provide a SAAC in ACCtion update on how their program is getting involved. When reading these articles, we hope that it is evident that their efforts to give back result in so much more.

"We're just a really great family. There's a lot of support within our student-athlete group. My coach always says, 'Consistency is key,' which I feel we have in SAAC." --Emerson Davis
Miami's SAAC Web Site Senior swimmer Emerson Davis is a co-president of Miami's SAAC, a representative to the ACC SAAC, and pivotal in Miami's strong focus on community service. Davis took a few minutes to chat with theACC.com about SAAC's initiatives and her experiences. What is the overall goal of Miami's SAAC? Our goal is to be a voice for student-athletes, so that they get their opinions heard and to promote communication between all aspects of our athletic department, whether it be the athletes or coaches or whatever department they may be from. We focus a lot on community service. How is Miami's SAAC set up? We have co-presidents - myself and Hagen Weintraub - and three committees. I headed up the community service committee this year because I had certain goals that I really wanted to get done. We have an event planning committee, which is mostly focused on putting together events for student-athletes and people from the athletic department. Our publicity committee has a few people who focus on getting our name out there. A lot of people haven't heard of SAAC before, so we try and get our name out there to other student-athletes. What were some of those community service goals that you brought into this year? I looked at a lot of other schools and at what their programs did, and I found a lot of great ideas from the other ACC schools. I really wanted to do something with an elementary school. Roger Bell - an advisor here - had a contact at Tucker Elementary School in Coconut Grove, so we started talking to them. We now have a different team go there every month and do a program that they want to do with the kids. My team went there the first month. We read books with a few fourth- and fifth-grade students who had trouble reading and took a quiz on their computers with them to see how well they read the book. The golf team went this past month and talked to a whole class about the rules of golf and read a book with them. I'm interested to see what other teams will do. Student-athletes planting a garden during the spring project. What are the recurring community service projects that SAAC does? We donate toiletries that student-athletes get when they go to away competitions to homeless shelters and the Charlie program, which is for abused children. We also donate shoes to the homeless shelters and the Charlie program. We like to do something for Thanksgiving every year too, so this year we had food donated. We put together full Thanksgiving dinners along with a poster of the basketball team to present to needy families at halftime of a basketball game. In past years, we've done something called "Shop With a Jock," where kids get to go to a store and pick out a toy with a student-athlete. This year, we did a holiday event with our adopted Tucker Elementary. (Athletes from various teams) went to the school and had the Pre-K and kindergarten kids make little candy cane mice and reindeer, along with Christmas cards to help them to read and spell. We also have something here called "Red Ribbon Week," which is to educate kids about drugs, alcohol, and violence - like a D.A.R.E. program. We had student-athletes go to a school and speak to second- through fifth-graders about that and how it would affect us if we made the wrong choices. Are there certain programs that tend to be the favorite among the student-athletes? We've only been doing activities with the Tucker Elementary School for two months, but when we go, it's really fun and very rewarding. I'd say what we do with the elementary school always has a good turnout. House painting during the spring project. What big events do you have planned for next semester? We're going to start doing pen pals with the Tucker school. We're still working out the exact logistics. We're also planning a Syncathon to try to get as many people as possible to call donors and thank them for what they've done for the department. A big thing at Miami is that the school just "went green," so we also want to plan a project to support that. We're also working on a "Get Out the Vote" program. We're still in the planning stages, but our goal is to educate student-athletes about voting since next year is the election year. I think it's important to stress that your vote does make a difference. What student-athlete welfare issues is SAAC currently focusing on? One thing that we have issues with is parking around our athletic facilities. Our parking area is right across the street from the new university apartments, so people who live there seem to be parking in our area. This is something that was just brought up a few meetings ago, so we'll see where it is when we meet again after the break. I think we do a good job overall with facilities issues. Whenever we bring up an issue, it's fixed quickly. What programs does SAAC sponsor for the student-athletes? We have a barbecue the week before spring finals start. It's just a fun thing for everyone, including people in the athletic department. We give out awards, including MVP, Senior Male and Senior Female Athlete, the community service award and the academic award. We also try to get student-athletes out to different games to support their fellow student-athletes. If it's a big game or big rival, we'll promote it to get as many people out to the game as possible. Something I'd like to see for next year is a way to better assimilate freshman student-athletes and get them used to the university. John Rochford and Kirby Freeman visit with elementary students during Red Ribbon Week. How did you personally get involved with SAAC? During the spring semester of my freshman year, one of the girls from my team couldn't come anymore. We try to get two athletes from each team, so my head coach asked me to come. I had heard about it, and when I went to a meeting, I was really excited about it. It's fun to be a representative from your team. Can you talk a bit about your time as an ACC SAAC rep? My first experience with that was when I came up to an ACC SAAC meeting two years ago as an alternate. It's great seeing other SAAC representatives and talking to people from other schools about how they run theirs. It's a great way to make your SAAC better because you bring back ideas. How do you think your time as an ACC SAAC rep and as co-president of Miami's SAAC will help you after graduation? Like I said, it's nice being a representative and being able to voice your opinions and your needs for your team. It helps you with communicating with other people and finding the best way to get things done. The experience is great because you meet people from the athletic department and it's nice to have contacts and know who exactly you can go to in order to get something done. It helps you form skills you can use in the future for whatever job you go into. If there was something you'd like the public to know about Miami's SAAC or its student-athletes, what would it be? I'd say that we're just a really great family. There's a lot of support within our student-athlete group, and our SAAC meetings are always well-attended. It's nice to have everyone from student-athletes to people in the athletic department all meet together, even if it's just once a month. My coach always says, "Consistency is key," which I feel we have in SAAC. That's the best way to get things done.